When the Israeli converted 98s first started coming into Canada, Alan Lever and myself went the the International Firearms Warehouse in Montreal.
Alan was a broker/buyer per se.
He bought rifles for his store, as well as for several other stores in BC, Alberta and if memory serves, the Yukon, for a store which had arrangements with an outlet up there to provide this type of firearm to the Indigenous folks requiring them. By this time most of those folks wanted something "better" and usually bought their own.
One requirement for all of the rifles sent to the Yukon was that they were to be in NEW ONLY condition. We were second in line to go through the several thousand rifles at the warehouse. S.I.R had first pick.
S.I.R. bought a lot of firearms from International. More than Lever Arms. When such firearms came up for sale, after all sorts of final "customs" issues they would send out information to different distributors across Canada.
I'm not sure how they established their pecking order, but in this case, Lever was second. Cash is king in these transactions, recorded of course, and maybe Mr Lever had been involved in acquiring the firearms. He has a lot of connections in Israel. The rifle all had to be routed through the UK, before they came to Canada, where they were warehoused, inspected again, for grade, condition and how many would be set aside for US distribution, where they wouldn't bring as much money, but sales in one state would be greater than all of Canada.
SIR went straight to the NEW crates, opened a couple of dozen and purchased the equivalent of a couple of container loads.
Mr Lever had orders for 1200 rifles in NEW condition and immediately put in a request for 150 crates of new rifles. The order was just barely filled and he also had orders for an additional 1500 rifles in issued but Very Good to Excellent condition. These were also in crates, but instead of 8 rifles, these crates contained 12 and didn't come with matching accessories, actually no accessories. So, to round things off, he ordered 150 crates of the slightly lesser grade rifles. Then, he bought an additional 2500 rifles of Good to Very Good condition grade on 5 pallets. These were unique in that each rifle was separated by heavy cardboard strips, so they wouldn't rub against each other. Unusual for milsurps from military warehouses, when they're being disposed of. Someone was taking care.
So it wouldn't be particularly unusual for Cornelunc to have come across a fresh FTR rifle.
Remember, almost all of these Mausers, other than later orders out of Belgium were FTRS. They were surplus, bought in Europe, issued in Israel, went through all sorts of extremes and then returned to the military, who contracted the conversions to 7.62 NATO. There are people on this site with much more info than I have.
That's why you see many of them with huge numbers arced out of their receivers and stocks, with Czech, German, etc receivers, mismatched parts, you name it and some rifles, which were purpose built for Israel from Belgium with Israeli crests on their receivers.
The last Israeli Mauser I had was stampe SWP45, in a mismatched laminated stock, almost no blue, loose and rattling but with almost perfect headspace and an excellent bore. It shot surplus Nato ammunition better than the ammo was built to shoot.
Cornelunc, if that were my rifle, I would mount a period scope on it and shoot it as is.
